America’s housing market continued its staggering post-recession rise in 2016, as many regions surpassed their pre-recession-bubble highs. With interest rates finally rising, might some of those places be primed for a fall…or at least a pause?

The list of U.S. areas that could be hurt most by rising mortgage costs is not your typical list of overheated housing markets, as some fast-growing, but still modestly-priced Midwestern towns could feel the pain first.

Rising home values are always a good news/bad news story — good news for homeowners and sellers, bad news for would-be buyers. In almost every region of the country, 2016 turned out to be a very good year for owners and sellers. According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national index, home values gained 5.6% nationwide annually as of October 2016. In some places, values soared even quicker: Seattle grew 10.7%, Portland 10.3%, and Denver 8.3%, according to the Case-Shiller report.

Applying for a Mortgage? Call 844-346-3296

The good times for sellers seem set to end, however. After a seemingly endless set of warnings, the Federal Reserve finally raised interest rates in December, triggering increases in mortgage rates. More critically, Fed governors signaled that there could be three more increases in 2017, meaning mortgage interest rates will probably be about a full percentage point higher next year than they were in most of 2016. That, in turn, means higher monthly payments for borrowers, making it harder for some would-be buyers to take the plunge. In other words, higher rates could cool the housing market, says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at Attom Data Solutions, a housing market data firm.

“I see rising interest rates as a cold shower for many overheated housing markets in 2017,” he said via email. “This is probably a good thing overall, but it could come as a bit of a shock for folks who are expecting those markets to continue performing at the same level they have over the past few years.”

Changes in demand dictated by borrowing costs is just one side of the equation that might hurt sellers next year. After all, there always seems to be someone willing to overpay for a New York City apartment or a home anywhere near Silicon Valley. (You can use this tool to determine how much house you can afford.) That’s due in part to plentiful high-paying jobs in those regions. But many smaller markets have enjoyed a fast run-up in prices, too, and those are probably at greater risk of an interest-rate induced slowdown because of another variable in that equation: slower wage growth.

To calculate this risk, Attom produced a spreadsheet for Credit.com ranking counties by the Attom Home Affordability Index – computed via a formula that takes local wages, home values, property taxes, and historical affordability into account. The list was then ranked by the counties that became less affordable at the quickest rate over the past year. These are metros that could potentially be the most sensitive to changes in mortgage rates that would send some would-be home shoppers back to their rentals. They include:

It’s probably no surprise that five of the top 20 locales are in Florida. However, if you expect New York, Seattle, and San Francisco on the list of rapidly-growing-unaffordable locales, think again; in their place are Midwestern areas like St. Louis, Missouri; Rockford, Illinois, and Toledo, Ohio.

In fact, St. Louis County (which includes the city of St. Louis) topped the list. There, Attom says, the median home sale price rose 19% last year, to $186,000, but wages were actually down a little more than 2%. That means the region’s affordability had sunk 12% on the Attom index. Just three years ago, median home sales prices were just $99,900 in St. Louis – meaning median home prices are up 86% during the three-year span. That’s a recipe for a pullback.

The story is similar in Winnebago County, Illinois, about halfway between Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin. Home prices are up 18% there, but wages are down 1.9%. That means the region’s affordability is also down 12% on the Attom scale.

Also of note on the list of 20 cities with the fastest rate of declining affordability: Greeley and Lakewood, Colorado; Austin, Amarillo, and Dallas, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; and two of the south’s hottest cities, Nashville, Tennessee and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Of course, the phenomenon of housing prices outpacing wage growth is not limited to these areas. Attom says home price growth outpaced wage growth in 81% of counties nationwide last year – in 363 of 447 counties studies. That’s up from 57% of counties a year ago.

“Rapid home price appreciation and tepid wage growth have combined to erode home affordability during this housing recovery, and the recent uptick in mortgage rates only accelerated that trend in the fourth quarter,” Blomquist said in the report. “The prospect of further interest rate hikes in 2017 will likely cause further deterioration of home affordability next year. Absent a strong resurgence in wage growth, that will put downward pressure on home price appreciation in many local markets.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Sign up for our Credit Report Card and receive the latest tips & advice from our team of 50+ credit and money experts as well as a FREE Credit Score and action plan. Sign up now.

Bob Sullivan is author of the New York Times best-sellers Gotcha Capitalism and Stop Getting Ripped Off. His stories have appeared in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of other publications. He has appeared as a consumer advocate and technology expert numerous times on NBC's TODAY show, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, NPR's Marketplace, Terry Gross' Fresh Air, and various other radio and TV outlets. He helped start MSNBC.com and wrote there for nearly 20 years, most of it penning the consumer advocacy column The Red Tape Chronicles. See more at www.bobsullivan.net. Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook or Twitter. More by Bob Sullivan

Comments on articles and responses to those comments are not provided or commissioned by a bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by a bank advertiser. It is not a bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Please note that our comments are moderated, so it may take a little time before you see them on the page. Thanks for your patience.

John Ginsburg

St. Louis County does not include the City of St. Louis. The City is a county unto itself. St. Louis County surrounds the city with suburbs to the north, west, and south.

Jeanine Skowronski

Thanks for pointing this out! We corrected the misspelling. Regarding Denver, the list is capturing two different counties within the same metro area.

Certain credit cards and other financial products mentioned in this and other sponsored content on Credit.com are Partners with Credit.com. Credit.com receives compensation if our users apply for and ultimately sign up for any financial products or cards offered.

Hello, Reader!

Thanks for checking out Credit.com. We hope you find the site and the journalism we produce useful. We wanted to take some time to tell you a bit about ourselves.

Our People

The Credit.com editorial team is staffed by a team of editors and reporters, each with many years of financial reporting experience. We’ve worked for places like the New York Times, American Banker, Frontline, TheStreet.com, Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC and many others. We also employ a few freelancers and more than 50 contributors (these are typically subject matter experts from the worlds of finance, academia, politics, business and elsewhere).

Our Reporting

We take great pains to ensure that the articles, video and graphics you see on Credit.com are thoroughly reported and fact-checked. Each story is read by two separate editors, and we adhere to the highest editorial standards. We’re not perfect, however, and if you see something that you think is wrong, please email us at editorial team [at] credit [dot] com,

The Credit.com editorial team is committed to providing our readers and viewers with sound, well-reported and understandable information designed to inform and empower. We won’t tell you what to do. We will, however, do our best to explain the consequences of various actions, thereby arming you with the information you need to make decisions that are in your best interests. We also write about things relating to money and finance we think are interesting and want to share.

In addition to appearing on Credit.com, our articles are syndicated to dozens of other news sites. We have more than 100 partners, including MSN, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo, Marketwatch, Scripps, Money Magazine and many others. This network operates similarly to the Associated Press or Reuters, except we focus almost exclusively on issues relating to personal finance. These are not advertorial or paid placements, rather we provide these articles to our partners in most cases for free. These relationships create more awareness of Credit.com in general and they result in more traffic to us as well.

Our Business Model

Credit.com’s journalism is largely supported by an e-commerce business model. Rather than rely on revenue from display ad impressions, Credit.com maintains a financial marketplace separate from its editorial pages. When someone navigates to those pages, and applies for a credit card, for example, Credit.com will get paid what is essentially a finder’s fee if that person ends up getting the card. That doesn’t mean, however, that our editorial decisions are informed by the products available in our marketplace. The editorial team chooses what to write about and how to write about it independently of the decisions and priorities of the business side of the company. In fact, we maintain a strict and important firewall between the editorial and business departments. Our mission as journalists is to serve the reader, not the advertiser. In that sense, we are no different from any other news organization that is supported by ad revenue.

Visitors to Credit.com are also able to register for a free Credit.com account, which gives them access to a tool called The Credit Report Card. This tool provides users with two free credit scores and a breakdown of the information in their Experian credit report, updated twice monthly. Again, this tool is entirely free, and we mention that frequently in our articles, because we think that it’s a good thing for users to have access to data like this. Separate from its educational value, there is also a business angle to the Credit Report Card. Registered users can be matched with products and services for which they are most likely to qualify. In other words, if you register and you find that your credit is less than stellar, Credit.com won’t recommend a high-end platinum credit card that requires an excellent credit score You’d likely get rejected, and that’s no good for you or Credit.com. You’d be no closer to getting a product you need, there’d be a wasted inquiry on your credit report, and Credit.com wouldn’t get paid. These are essentially what are commonly referred to as "targeted ads" in the world of the Internet. Despite all of this, however, even if you never apply for any product, the Credit Report Card will remain free, and none of this will impact how the editorial team reports on credit and credit scores.

Your Stories

Lastly, much of what we do is informed by our own experiences as well as the experiences of our readers. We want to tell your stories if you’re interested in sharing them. Please email us at story ideas [at] credit [dot] com with ideas or visit us on Facebook or Twitter.